


Sharing the Risk

by killabeez



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-03-22
Updated: 1998-03-22
Packaged: 2017-10-08 06:00:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killabeez/pseuds/killabeez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While on leave, Spock has taken his courage in his hands and has made the first move...but Kirk's initial response isn't quite what he'd hoped for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sharing the Risk

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Português brasileiro available: [Partilhando o Risco](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4863209) by [Rosetta (Melime)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Rosetta)



The dream sun beat down on the forest canopy overhead, while below the air retained its cool, damp chill. The stone under his hands was hot, slick as obsidian, seeming to thrum with a malevolent life-force.

"Spock!" Kirk shouted, and the Vulcan looked up.

Thirty meters above him, Kirk clung to the sheer face of the cliff. He wore a climbing harness. The fingertip ledge he held to was invisible from Spock's vantage on the ground. His face was a pale oval through the translucent leaves.

And Spock knew, for this dream was an old companion, that there was nothing he could do to prevent what would happen next.

"Spock, come on!"

He was much higher now--a tiny figure on the rock above. Spock tried to make out his face, but Jim was not looking at him--was still climbing. Willing himself not to look, looking anyway, Spock felt his eyes pulled toward the ground, to the puddle of fibrous rope that was lying, still coiled, at his feet. He looked up again, tried to shout a warning. His throat seized shut. The wind stilled.

Suddenly, with the impossibility of dream, Spock found himself on the ledge two thousand feet above, looking down, the toes of his boots supported by air and nothing else. Desperation hot in his throat, he knelt on the edge.

"Jim!"

Not far. Just a little space between them. Kirk looked up, his eyes widening slightly, as if in surprise. The stone was crumbling under his hands.

Slowly, so slowly, he began to slip away from the Vulcan, began to slide backward down the face of the cliff. Spock reached out, but the tips of Kirk's fingers were too far away. Their eyes held.

"I'm sorry," Kirk said quietly, no fear in him at all as he fell.

Spock woke in the warm, soft nest of his sleeping bag, shuddering, his body bathed in sweat and sitting half- upright. He drew a gulping breath and swallowed the instinctive shout, not sure if he had cried out once already. He was disoriented for an instant, unable to reconcile the warmth with the chill air that hurt his lungs. The familiar reddish glow of his quarters was strangely absent, replaced by coccooning darkness.

Then his lips formed Kirk's name, and he remembered.

Shore Leave, on Galecia Prime. Camping, with Jim, against his own better judgment and any reasonable logic. The two- man tent--of which he was the sole occupant.

With the careful categorization of his immediate surroundings, the last of the nightmare faded and he remembered the previous evening with painful clarity. His time sense told him that some five hours had passed since Jim had left him beside the fire. Kirk had returned after rinsing the dishes and pulled his sleeping bag near the embers, murmuring something about wanting to sleep under the stars, carefully avoiding the Vulcan's eyes. Spock had understood. _He can't bear to sleep in close proximity--or knows that I could not bear it._ Even now, with the shame of his failure to control still hot in his throat, the thought of holding that body in sleep sent warm honey through his veins.

Spock had obeyed Kirk's unspoken directive, taking himself and his sleeping bag to the small tent some eight meters away--still close enough to sense any danger or disturbance, but far enough to permit sleep. At last, lulled by the soft rhythm of Kirk's breathing, he _had_ slept.

And, perchance, he had dreamed.

He closed his eyes, listening to the soft night sounds of an alien world, listening for the regular rise and fall of breath that would tell him if Jim was still sleeping. His ears picked up the faint sounds of rustling fabric. He sensed almost immediately that the human was awake, listening, too-- realized that he had, in fact, cried out or made some sound in the grip of nightmare. Had he called the name? Spock tried to regulate his own breathing, feigning slumber.

The rustle again--Kirk trying to recapture sleep. A moment later Spock's sensitive ears heard him abandon the sleeping bag altogether. Now, eyes adapted to darkness, the Vulcan could see him through the translucent window-screen, outlined in faint starlight. The silhouetted figure ran his hands through his hair and shivered, as the chill penetrated his insulated clothing.

Kirk stepped away from the fire pit and into the shadows beyond. How many times on the ship had Spock heard his captain wrestling with such nightmares? Now, when he might find some peace, Spock drove him from that haven with his own demons.

Before he had fully registered his intent, Spock was untangling himself from the sleeping bag, stepping from the warm safety of his shelter out into the night air. The initial difference in temperature made him shiver violently--but although the air was cool, after a moment of adjustment he found it tolerable. Compelled by a need he didn't name he crossed the clearing, stepping over Jim's abandoned sleeping bag and between the trees on the other side. He knew where Kirk was going, sensed him a little distance ahead, as if the human were resonating at some soft, perfect pitch which only he could hear.

* * *

Kirk found himself on the narrow path that led to the spring. After a moment his eyes began to compensate for the darkness. Ghost-images of rocks and trees loomed out of the shadows.

The Vulcan's soft, anguished cry had woken him from a disturbing dream of his own--one where everyone had silver eyes--and he had found himself reluctant to return to it. He needed to think more than he needed sleep, anyway.

_That's an understatement if I ever heard one,_ said a small inner voice.

Sometimes that voice was his own, or Jack Garrovick's, sometimes his father's. Tonight, it sounded a lot like Gary. He had an idea that a little of Gary's no-holds-barred cynicism would be a good thing tonight, and he welcomed it, even if it was only his own subconscious speaking in the voice of a dead man.

He reached the place where clear water bubbled up from the rock, and found a flat stone where he could sit and look into the rippling pool. For a while he only looked into the water, watching the stars shimmer there, the air cool on the back of his neck.

_Okay, kid, time to face facts._

Kirk could almost sense the dead man's presence. He turned to the empty space beside him, seeing dark-fringed eyes in memory undimmed by the intervening years. He pressed the palms of his hands flat against the cool stone.

All right. Fact Number One: I can't seem to stop thinking about last night. About his lips on mine. Can't seem to stop hearing what he said. In love with me, he said. In love with me.

_Mm-hmm. Very interesting._ Mitchell's ironic smile was as vivid in his memory as it had ever been. Kirk closed his eyes.

Fact Number Two: he is my best friend in the universe, and I can't bear to lose him. But I will, if I screw this up--that much is plain.

_So don't screw up._

Easier said than done. How can I know what is the right thing to say? How can I help him--when my own feelings are so messed up I can't tell my head from my ass?

The arch, knowing grin. _No comment. Stick to the facts, Jim, baby._

All right. Fact Number Three: I want him, more than I would have believed possible. If things had been different, I could have--loved him.

Silence, and the astute eyes urging him on.

Every bit as much as I loved you. Maybe even more.

_So what's the problem?_

I don't think I'm capable of love. Not now. Not any more.

It was not a new fear--but it was the first time he had voiced it, even to himself. He tried to make it sound extreme, melodramatic, an alarmist exaggeration of the late hour and his loneliness.

But it didn't _feel_ melodramatic. It felt...true. He had known for some time that something was...burnt out in him. Each conquest, each brief tactile contact had become emptier than those before it, and now the isolation welled up, making him feel helpless in the face of its totality. He pushed it down as he had a hundred times in the three years since Edith's death, knowing the danger it presented to his sanity and, more importantly, to his command abilities. The Enterprise was all he had left.

Jesus, he thought in despair, what does he imagine I could possibly offer him?

And the only possible answer to that: nothing. Nothing but pain he doesn't deserve, and he'll leave me, and Nogura will take the Enterprise from me, and then what? And then what?

Spock watched him from the shadows, not four meters away. He couldn't move, couldn't seem to take his eyes from that eloquent, too-still profile. Jim's eyes were on the water, clearly lost in thought. Spock read easily the signs of methodical, ruthless deliberation in the set of the broad shoulders, in the fixed gaze, and felt himself holding his breath.

Then some fundamental truth seemed to shift in the expressive face, giving way. The palpable despair reached out to the Vulcan, wrenching at him. There was suddenly something obscenely voyeuristic about watching him like this, about witnessing that naked pain. He felt certain he was seeing a James Kirk his captain had never revealed to a living being.

He moved, Kirk's anguish calling him from the darkness, irresistible.

The sound of a twig snapping made Kirk look up, startled. He met the dark eyes, swallowing involuntarily, and felt himself flush--wondered what his face had been revealing.

"How long have you been there?" he demanded. It came out sounding harsher than he meant it to.

"A moment, only," the Vulcan murmured. His voice was hoarse, barely audible above the soft burbling of the spring. He took another step, and Kirk could see his face. The dark eyes seemed to caress him. "I woke you," Spock said softly. "I am sorry."

Kirk only looked at him in silence. After a moment, his eyes slid back toward the starlit pool. "It's okay," he relented, and sighed. "I was having something of a ...nightmare, myself. I probably should thank you."

Disquieted by his uncharacteristic wistfulness, Spock drew even closer. Started to say his name.

A little shudder ran through Kirk, and he moved, as if he would bolt back down the path through the trees. He slid down from the rock, the motion bringing him to his feet inches from the Vulcan. But he did not flee, only stood there, face half-turned toward Spock, waiting.

Spock drew a breath, feeling again the compelling need which had brought him here, a tight pressure against his ribs. The answering loneliness he sensed in Kirk made him brave. "Jim, I need to... need you to..." His throat closed; he could not finish.

Kirk's eyes widened slightly; he started to shake his head, but Spock's hands found his shoulders.

"Please. Even if it means nothing, changes nothing--I need to do this. Just for a moment."

Kirk swallowed, hard. The hands tightened painfully; he met the plea in the dark eyes, and felt himself surrender. He reached out hesitantly and pulled Spock against him, into his arms.

They stood like that for a long time. A confused muddle of reactions rose in Kirk at the feel of those arms around him. It felt very good to be held, and by such tender strength--he had to admit that it did. It had been too long since he had let anyone get close enough to just--hold him, like this. At the same time, the realization that this was _Spock_ threatened to unhinge him. There was a tiny kernel of heat in his chest, like a cinder, slowly burning a hole in him. And he thought he knew what it was.

The dead and burned-out thing inside him had been a tight, impenetrable, unassailable knot for so long that he had nearly ceased to feel it. But something had happened last night (had it only been last night?) when Spock had kissed him, had spoken words he had never, never thought to hear. It had not been a healing--no, not that, not so easily. He didn't think that was possible. But something had changed.

Strands of the knot unraveling.

It was a terrifying feeling.

Spock breathed in, every nerve in his body alive with pleasure at holding him. He could feel the thick softness of Kirk's thermally insulated clothing, could feel the tight, fluid muscles of his back shifting under his hands and the warmth radiating through the layers of soft fabric. Kirk felt--incredible, indescribable. Spock pressed the side of his face against Kirk's hair and inhaled the fragrant, faint odors of evergreens and wood smoke and Jim's own scent.

And oh, just for a moment, he didn't care about anything else, couldn't. He held Jim against him, losing himself in the feel of that softness and steel strength, that sweet, intoxicating warmth, storing away precious moments that would have to last a lifetime.

He became aware, dimly, that Kirk had spoken his name.

"Spock," Kirk said again, shifting in the Vulcan's arms, "we can't..."

Spock let him go, drawing on all his training to do it. "I know. But I--needed to do that." He realized that the overwhelming pleasure of the embrace was showing in his face and straightened his expression, with some difficulty.

Jim was staring at him, feeling faintly shocked. "Are you...all right?" he asked carefully. It was only the second time he had ever seen Spock smile.

"I am, now . I apologize if my actions... if I disturbed you."

Jim blinked. "No. No, you didn't," he lied. His mind was running in tight circles of incredulity.

Spock seemed to sense his agitation, for he took a half-step backward, giving him a little space to breathe. "Please," he said at last, "forgive me."

Kirk closed his eyes for a moment and managed to get the unreasonable sensation of falling under control. His hand found the Vulcan's forearm, squeezed it once, briefly, in reassurance. "Nothing to forgive," he said gently. He opened his eyes and searched the ascetic face. "That must have been some dream," he said finally. "Want to talk about it?"

Spock gazed at him, the faintest quirk lifting one corner of his mouth. "No," he admitted.

Kirk found himself smiling back in spite of himself. "Me either." After a moment he said softly, "Can I ask you something?"

Spock said nothing, only waited, feeling curiously detached.

"If you had it to do over again. If we could go back to last night, by the fire--would you do things differently?" His eyes lifted, studying Spock's face. "Would you still be hiding the truth from me?"

Caught by that mesmerizing, demanding gaze, Spock weighed that carefully. The answer he found surprised him. "No, I would not."

Kirk's eyes approved him, shining with pride for an instant. Then he looked down, mirroring Spock's posture. "And do you think our friendship is worth salvaging?"

"Jim--yes." Spock heard the roughness in his voice, swallowed. "I do not wish to lose you."

Kirk's relief was plain. "Well, good." He gave an uncertain smile. "Then I think we need to talk about this. About last night," he clarified, as if Spock had forgotten the moment in which he had claimed Jim's lips with his own.

Spock drew an unsteady breath. Impossible to lie to him. Impossible to deny him anything. "Very well," he said hoarsely, unable to meet his gaze.

Kirk hesitated, studying the play of starlight on the water. "How long have you had these--feelings?" he asked at last.

He half-expected Spock to shy away from answering, avoid him with that supremely Vulcan agility. But he didn't.

"I do not know if I can answer that question. It is difficult to know the origin of emotions I have denied the existence of for so long." He swallowed again. "There were--signs."

"What signs?"

The vertical line in Spock's forehead deepened. He closed his eyes. "Seeing you with others caused pain. Being apart from you also became--painful. And there were other-- indications."

Kirk felt something rise in his throat. "It seems all I do is hurt you." He suddenly felt callous and stupid. "You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to."

The dark eyes opened for an instant, met his. "But I _do_ want to." The bright compassion in Kirk's gaze was too much for Spock, and he looked away. His lips parted, but no words came.

"What is it?"

Spock's gaze flitted back to Kirk's, and then the Vulcan closed his eyes again. His face stood out in harsh lines. "There is something I never told you," he whispered, with some difficulty. Kirk waited, not speaking. "Do you remember the transporter malfunction which resulted in a multiphasic space-time inversion?"

Memory welled up, filling Kirk with the vision of that other Spock, dark and sinister in his beard and the uniform of that brutal empire, his eyes still curious, still questing, still shining with that inner integrity that it seemed a Spock of any universe wore like a mantle for all to see. Did he _remember?_

"How could I forget?" _Oh, my dark friend, what has become of you now? What of your revolution, and your honor?_

"That other James Kirk--" Spock was saying.

"You told me you had recognized the switch immediately."

"Not entirely accurate. There was a period of--uncertainty." Spock felt his face heat with the memory he had blocked for years. "I was at the transporter controls. When the phase transition was complete, he ordered the others to report for duty. There were a few moments when I was--alone, with him."

"What happened?" Kirk breathed, mesmerized despite himself.

"He--touched me, as you would not have done. On the wrist. The small of my back. He spoke about the mission. Said he liked my face smooth. That I looked--good enough to eat. I knew, of course, that it was not--_you."_

"I'm sorry," Kirk whispered, illogically.

Spock drew a breath. "It is in no way your fault. But after that, I began to have...dreams."

"About him?" Jim dared to ask. His face also felt suddenly very warm.

"No. About you. I refused to acknowledge them for almost two years." Spock opened his eyes, gazing into the distance.

"Spock--"

The Vulcan shook his head, very slightly. "There is more. On Vulcan. The koon ut kalifee. I did...kill you, you know," he said hoarsely, face tight with the memory. "Though McCoy restored you, saved you--I did take your life that day on the lands of my ancestors." His eyes found Kirk's, and the Vulcan's were dark with anxiety and remembered grief. "You know this, do you not?"

"Yes. I know, but Spock--"

"Jim, listen to me," Spock whispered intently. "I felt you die. I felt--" his voice caught "--your life-force ebb. And the blood fever broke! This cannot happen. According to the most basic laws of Vulcan physiology, it is simply impossible. But it _did_ happen." His eyes dropped. "Even had I wished otherwise, my childhood link with T'Pring was shattered irrevocably in that moment. I think that I must have known then, at some level. Though I denied it vigorously." Only now admitting it to himself.

"Oh, Spock," Kirk murmured, very softly. He wanted to reach out, didn't dare.

After a long moment, Spock glanced uncertainly at him. "May I ask you something?"

"Of course."

Spock searched for words to frame the delicate subject. "It...surprised me, greatly, to learn that you..."

Kirk almost smiled. "That I've had...relationships...with men?"

Spock met his gaze with frank curiosity. "Yes."

Kirk sighed. "You know, I love women. Love their bodies, and their femaleness... but in a funny way, I never really felt that I understood women, not really. Which most of the time was fine with me. After Gary died... I didn't want anyone to get so close ever again."

The Vulcan wanted to reach out to him. "Jim..."

"What about you, Spock?" Kirk asked suddenly, his eyes full of interest, his cheeks flushing warm.

Spock blinked. "I--?"

"I always, ah, thought that you--" He was thinking of that girl, the one on Omicron Ceti III. What was her name?

_You know very damn well what her name was._

"I thought so, too," Spock said awkwardly. "Though I have not had overmuch experience upon which to base a preference." He felt the tightness in his throat become a painful ache, and the words he spoke then came out a hoarse whisper. "But I have never felt...this burning...for anyone else."

Kirk flinched from the intensity in Spock's voice. He saw the answering recoil in the Vulcan's too-still features, and cursed himself for a fool. Trying to lessen the tension, to give them both a moment to breathe, he moved a few steps away, hugging his arms tightly about himself. There was an unpleasant sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Spock, do you think we can still be...friends?"

Spock did not answer for a long moment. He was staring at the dark surface of the pool, the way it reflected the night sky and thus seemed infinitely deep. "This is...difficult."

Kirk tried to make himself breathe normally. "Tell me the truth."

Spock's face was averted. Kirk couldn't see his eyes. "I do not know."

Kirk suddenly felt perilously close to tears. He forced them down impatiently. "Spock...I want you in my life." It came out like the voice of a man near desperation. The sound of it in his own ears startled him.

At last the Vulcan reacted. He took two steps further away, and spoke as if the words hurt him. "And I cannot...I do not wish to be parted from you. But I do not know if it will be possible for me to go on as before."

The awful feeling in Kirk's stomach was getting worse. He felt like he was sinking in quicksand. "Spock--"

The Vulcan turned, meeting Kirk's eyes bluntly. "Can you honestly say that things will remain unchanged between us? That these few days will not make a difference in your command of the Enterprise, in our friendship? You have said it yourself, in the past. The captain of a starship cannot afford--entanglements."

Unconsciously, Kirk moved toward him, something in him too large to contain. "Spock, I've always...cared about you. That hasn't changed. We've always dealt with it before. You're my best friend." And there was that sound again, that pleading he couldn't quite suppress.

"It is not the same."

Kirk felt misery well up, stunning in its totality. "No. It isn't, is it."

The Vulcan found the hazel eyes, saw that they were wide, and full of hurt. Spock tried to make him understand. "I do not know if I could stand by--now--and let you shield me, as I have so many times before. I do not know if you could trust me to obey your orders if you were in danger." That was hard to say, but there could only be truth between them now. "I do not know if it is better to see you every day, or not at all," he whispered, truth, unavoidable.

The hazel eyes shone with Kirk's despair.

"You perceive the difficulty," Spock said matter-of-factly, and there was a difficulty in his throat.

Kirk was silent for a moment. Then he shook his head in violent negation. "I just can't believe that we'd be better off apart. I never--" he drew a breath. "We've been through so much together in the past five years. Somehow I just never pictured myself alone again."

Spock could not hold his gaze. "Nor I."

Kirk felt again that pressure behind his eyes, in his throat. "I'm so goddamned sorry."

"You have done nothing. I am the one who should ask forgiveness." Spock drew his arms in close, feeling suddenly very cold. "You never asked for this to happen." The words were almost inaudible--but they seized at Kirk's heart.

"Neither did you."

The compassion in the soft voice threatened to be Spock's undoing. "I should have been stronger."

"No, dammit," Kirk said fiercely. His voice caught. He was closer, only a meter away now. The Vulcan did not look at him. "Spock--how can I tell you what it means to me that you trusted me enough to tell me...what you did? I don't deserve you."

"Jim--" Anguished, now.

"No! Let me finish." Jim's voice dropped, intense with the need to make Spock understand. "I want things to be different. More than I can say. _I_ want to be different. Part of me had never felt such...happiness, as I did in the moment you told me you...loved me."

His hands were clenched tight around his upper arms now, as if he were in danger of flying apart. "I love you like a part of me," he grated, agonized, inexorable. "But I'm no good for you, Spock. I can't let myself feel again, not like that. Do you understand? It just isn't in me--that capacity. I burned it out and cauterized it myself, too many years ago." And finally, he turned away, and Spock felt his eyes follow against his will.

Kirk's head tilted back, as if he were looking into the branches above, or into the star-filled sky. But Spock could see the delicate shadow of his lashes against his cheek; his eyes were closed, looking into a time long past, seeing shapes he could not escape. His voice, when it came, sounded flat and hollow.

"I chose the Enterprise years ago, when Gary died. I chose her again in that back alley in 1930. I have always chosen her." Spock knew he meant more than the ship, meant the immense weight of moral decision Kirk had always borne on shoulders which seemed too small to carry the burden. "It's a choice I can't revoke, and one I have to live with, every day of my life." His tone grew fierce. "I simply _will not_ let it happen to you. She's a jealous lover, Spock. She takes, and takes--" He was shaking now. "Our friendship...what we have...it was a gift I never expected. If you go--" and he turned, and Spock felt the touch of his gaze in some deep place in his soul "Spock, if you leave me, I don't know what I'll do. But if we did this... if we let this thing between us happen, and it came to a choice--" Kirk's expression was stripped of all defenses, raw and vulnerable, utterly lost, and it tore away the last veneer of armor between them.

  
Spock moved, then, responding to the need against his conscious will or any voice of reason. Reached out across the small space between them, touching the warm curve of his shoulder in an involuntary gesture. He felt the nameless pain in the human's face echoed in the sudden, gossamer eddies of the consciousness which brushed against his own thoughts, a bittersweet whisper.

"Jim." Not a reassurance, not words of comfort, but only the naked truth. "You did not make those choices alone. It was I who told you that Edith Keeler had to die. I was the one who told you to--kill Gary Mitchell." He squeezed the other's shoulder, making Kirk face him. "You were not alone. And if there are choices to be made in the future, you will still not be alone. Do you understand me? Nothing will change that. Not my leaving, nor any other possible choice you could make now."

Kirk couldn't hold to the other's gaze. If he acknowledged the truth of Spock's words, he would lose it. He wrenched free of the Vulcan's hold.

Then Spock's hand found his, fingers lacing in his fiercely, pressing their palms together, closing his other hand over Kirk's. That shocked him. Always before Spock had respected his personal boundaries, never intruding. But now the strong hands were iron, dark eyes confronting him with a truth that would not be denied. Panic surged in him.

"Don't--" he whispered, and it came out a naked plea. "Spock, don't."

"You can't change it," the Vulcan said quietly, his face earnest, willing Kirk to understand. "The logic is inescapable. You see?"

Spock's steady gaze melted his resistance, broke down his defenses, until Kirk caught his breath and found that he was squeezing back, holding on for dear life. The night wind rustled softly in the long, silvery needles overhead.

He shook his head helplessly. Tried to find strength to speak. The fingers tightened on his. "No," Spock said. "Do not say anything. Hear what I am telling you."

After a time which was measured in shared heartbeats, Spock released him slowly, letting Kirk pull his hand away. When the Vulcan spoke at last, his voice was infinitely gentle. "Jim, may I ask you something?"

"Of course," Kirk said without thinking. His own voice sounded breathless.

"It is...personal. You do not have to answer."

Kirk cleared his throat, trying to regain some control. He felt raw. "What's your question?"

"You requested Mitchell as your first officer, did you not? When you took command of the Enterprise?"

"Yes. We had served together before, on the Lydia Sutherland. Why do you ask?"

"How did you manage it? How did you face him every day, if you were--if you still had--feelings for him? I saw you with him every day for two months, and I never suspected, never thought--" He broke off. "Forgive me. You do not have to answer."

Kirk shook his head, throat tight. "But I _do_ have an answer, if you want it."

Spock drew a deep breath, nodding.

"It was difficult," Kirk said quietly, looking into another time, another reality. "To see him every day, to play the game... to see him with others. The years eased the pain, but it was never easy. But I bore it--" His voice caught. "Because it was better, you see. Better than before, when I _couldn't_ see him every day, when I couldn't know where he was, or what he was doing, if he was in danger, who he was with--" Kirk's mouth twisted with sudden anger, directed at himself. "I wanted to be near him. Even this, I told myself, is better than never seeing him, never being with him. I would take friendship if it was all I could have. And--I thought I could keep him safe." The words stopped, and he laughed, a hurting sound. "Spock, you're right. It's better if you go."

So many things were becoming clear to Spock, making connections that he was only now beginning to grasp fully. He could hear the fragile vulnerability in Kirk's voice, and part of him bled for that years-deep anguish.

But for the first time, the Vulcan caught a glimmer of light at the end of a long darkness and began to believe, in some buried core of suppressed hope, that there could be an end to loneliness.

"Why better?" he asked, and his captain looked at him at last.

Kirk's eyes were hollow with the measure of blood his own confession had drawn. "Because I killed him! Even though it wasn't me who actually pulled the trigger--I killed him!"

"Jim," Spock said, very gently. He held the other's gaze intently, trying to make Kirk feel his own certainty. "Do you not see that this guilt is an irrational self-indulgence?"

Kirk only stared at him. After a long moment, he blinked. "What?"

Spock leaned forward, refusing to let the hazel eyes slide away from his. His words were quiet, reasonable. "You blame yourself for his death, correct? Because you--loved him, because you wanted him near you, he died. Which makes it your fault."

Kirk tried to escape the eyes which pinned him, negate the words. It sounded ridiculous when put that way, but it was no more than he himself had implied, no more than he had believed in his heart for years.

Spock was going on, with that relentless compassion. "And if you caused his death, then you might have caused others. Edith Keeler. Jack Garrovick. How many others, Jim? Your brother? Perhaps you could have gotten to Deneva sooner. Matt Decker? Perhaps you could have prevented his madness, his suicide. Even though there was nothing you could have done to save any of them, even though each of these people determined his own path, his own destiny--in actuality, you killed them all. Is this not so? Is this not what you believe to be true?"

"Yes," Kirk whispered, hardly knowing he spoke.

"No!" The Vulcan seized him by the arms. "There was nothing you could have done, Jim, nothing! You must see that. You must see that your guilt has driven you to recklessness, driven you to take ever greater risks with your person, to lead the front line into all dangers out of the fear that someone, anyone, may die because of something you do or do _not_ do--" He caught his breath, felt his own unsteadiness. He had tapped his own greatest fear, and it made him reckless. He looked hard into Kirk's eyes, letting his own show everything he felt. "Death is not an adversary you fight on level ground. You cannot outwit death, or outthink it. You must learn to accept that, or your fear will destroy you."

But Kirk wasn't hearing him. His despair was too compelling. He pulled out of the Vulcan's grasp; Spock let him go, and Kirk sat down heavily on the flat rock. "There should have been _something_ I could have done," he said fiercely, gaze focused on another place and time.

It hit Spock then that Kirk had never told anyone, never talked about it, just gone on letting the self-blame eat at him from within, until his very memories must have been skewed by time.

Spock moved away slightly, a calculated distance. "Perhaps you're right," he said carefully, watching Kirk out of the corner of his eye. "Perhaps there was something you could have done. You never told me what happened that day." He could feel Kirk's eyes on him. He waited, breath held, not looking up. The night around them whispered to itself, a kind of subtle symphony of wind and trees and living things, and after a handful of minutes, Kirk began to speak haltingly about the day his best friend had died.

* * *

When he was finished, a hush seemed to follow his words. While he been speaking, Spock had come to sit beside him. Images of a day five years in the past were all around them, and in their remembering, each felt the presence of the other in a way which needed no words. Spock had been right, Kirk realized. He hadn't been alone. Not then, and not now. How could he ever have thought otherwise?

He felt emptied, like a hollow vessel, or a reed which might blow away at any moment, and it was a freeing, liberating feeling. For the first time in five years, he permitted himself to think about the nightmare of Delta Vega with some degree of objectivity. There were a great many truths here in the darkness, and feeling the warmth of the Vulcan's body beside him, he could finally let himself see them clearly.

It was so simple that he was amazed he had not perceived it before. All these years of blaming himself, punishing himself, and the truth was it had been easier. Easier to think it was his fault. Because if it _wasn't_ his fault, he might have had to think about that day, about those last hours, about the things Gary had said to him and the fact that his best friend would have--almost did--kill him on that godforsaken rock. Might have had to think about that more than he really wanted to.

He heard Spock's voice in his memory, _Is that the Gary Mitchell you know?_ But the hard thing to accept, the thing which lodged in his throat now, years later, was that in some terrible way it had been. Twisted by power, magnified by the thing which had been done to him, yes--but it had been _Gary,_ at the last, behind those silver eyes, and that was a truth he could not escape.

And failing to escape it, he turned to Spock, finding his friend close, watching him.

"He would have killed me."

Spock nodded slightly. "I am very glad he did not."

"It wasn't Gary's fault, what happened to him." Defending him, despite himself. But the dark eyes understood.

"No. It was not."

"And it wasn't...mine."

"No," the Vulcan said, very quietly. Beside him, Kirk drew a deep breath, as if a weight had been lifted. The love Spock felt for him in that moment was as pure and uncomplicated as any physical law of the universe.

Spock was certain now that he had not been wrong in that fateful, incredible instant when he'd felt Jim's mouth yielding under his, just for a moment. Leaning forward so he could see Kirk's face, he spoke now with all the intensity of his longing. "You see, Jim? You would accept blame for things you could not possibly control, and sentence yourself to a lifetime alone rather than face risking that kind of loss again. But I have seen the bleakness of making such a choice. I have known it all my life. Now I choose something better. I choose to love you. Can you not choose as well? Share the risk--as we have shared so many others?" The plea had been pulled from an unexpected place in him, and speaking it left a hollowness in his chest.

Kirk stared at the Vulcan, hardly able to believe the passion in Spock's face, his voice, his utter certainty. The raw courage of the man he had called friend for five years awed him, utterly. "I don't think I know how to do that any more," he said hoarsely, at last.

For a long moment, Spock didn't say anything. Then he tilted his head slightly, quirking his eyebrows in an utterly Spockian expression of subtle humor and irony. "Jim, until last night, neither did I."

Kirk started to smile before he realized it, feeling tension ease in more ways than he could have named. Something shifted in him, a small but essential counterweight, righting a fundamental imbalance. He gazed at this most remarkable of beings and felt profound wonder touch him.

Before he could say anything, Spock brushed Kirk's lips with his fingertips, a touch like gossamer. "No need," he murmured, the shadow of Kirk's sunny grin enough for him right then--more than enough. "Not tonight. We have six more days."

"Plenty of time," Kirk said huskily, nodding. His expression had gone thoughtful.

"Yes, Jim." Spock felt his heart beating heavily, sore from so much raw feeling. "As much as you need."

And Kirk, after a long moment, drew an unsteady breath. His shoulders straightened, and Spock heard him sigh. Unconsciously, the human's body swayed toward him slightly. In response, Spock's hand strayed to touch him. It was a small thing, the back of his hand pressed lightly to the rough wool of the other's sleeve, each of them with forearms propped on knees, not looking at each other. They stayed like that for a long time.

Spock shivered, finally, unable to suppress it.

"You're cold," Kirk said reprovingly. "So am I," he added, realizing it only as he said it. He shifted, and the Vulcan's hand fell away. Rising, Kirk yawned hugely and then chuckled a little over the size of the yawn. "Come on, my friend, time to hit the hay."

Spock nodded and rose, starting after him down the narrow path. He, too, felt suddenly exhausted, his fatigue magnifying the effect of the cold.

At the campsite, Kirk paused a moment, beside his own abandoned sleeping bag, eyes finding Spock's in the near- darkness. When he spoke, his voice was husky with the lateness of the hour and did interesting things to Spock's nervous system.

"What do you say we...bow to the logic of the situation and combine our body heat tonight?" He smiled disarmingly. "I won't bite."

Spock nodded. He was too cold to argue.

And did not feel inclined to argue, in any case.

Kirk dusted off his sleeping bag, tucked it under his arm, and ducked into the tent. He turned to hold the flap open for Spock, who slipped awkwardly past him into the confining space, catching the momentary scent of wool and warm human male as their bodies touched fleetingly. Then he shifted out of the way, making room for Jim to unroll his sleeping bag, burrowing into his own with grateful alacrity.

Motion ceased in the darkness beside him, and Kirk sighed as warmth began to penetrate his limbs. A moment later, Spock felt a weight, pressing very gently, against his side.

Kirk lay very still, holding his breath a little. Tried to tell himself that this was no different than the other times, those rare occasions when captain and first officer had huddled together for warmth on some landing party that hadn't gone exactly as planned. That thought made him smile. _Name one landing party that ever did,_ he challenged himself, and couldn't come up with one. And with that thought, he let himself relax, hunching slightly against Spock, feeling the Vulcan's warmth through the thick layers of insulated loft between them. Within moments, he began to drift, as sleep sped up behind him on dark, silent feet.

Spock turned slightly, making a curve of his body to shelter the warm shape beside him. He sensed it when the human fell asleep, the moment when his breathing slowed to a deep, even rhythm. No moonlight reached them here under the trees, and he could not see the peaceful surrender steal over Jim's face; but his memory supplied the vision, stored away long ago to be unearthed in such moments of need. He lay awake, half-cradling Jim Kirk against his body, not quite daring to put an arm around him.

Something had happened. Somehow, in the chill darkness beside the spring, everything had changed between them. And though they had resolved nothing, holding Kirk against him in the darkness he was filled with hope. It made his heart race quietly, gladly.

He turned his head, very slightly, and closed his eyes, drawing in a deep, silent breath. The musky, animal scent of Jim's hair, the back of his neck, filled his lungs.

He went on breathing it until sleep claimed him in its dark embrace.

* * *

Some time before morning, Kirk woke to darkness.

He came cleanly, completely awake, as if some sound had startled him into instant awareness. But there had been no sound, no movement in the forest, only the fast, strong beating of his heart and a feeling of unexplained joy. It infused him, buoyed him up. He felt he had never before been so glad to open his eyes.

_A dream,_ he realized, _must have been. Wish I could remember it. _But the shape of it eluded him.

It was that darkest hour of the morning; even the chirping insects had gone to sleep, and everything was still. He lay still for a long space of time, listening to the night and to the steady rise and fall of the Vulcan's breath against his ear. Eventually the warmth of the body curled around his lulled him.

Shrouds of fog cloaked him, drawing him back into twilight, and with one last attempt to recall the dream which had filled him with such undiluted gladness, he went. As he slipped back into warm darkness, he felt an arm enfold him and draw him close, and all his dreams were of stars.


End file.
